The Rabbi Wore Bell-Bottoms

If you question organized religion, feel ambivalent about your Jewish faith, and date Gentile girls, what happens when you find yourself Jewish Chaplain's Assistant at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri? You find yourself.

Drafted into the army fresh out of grad school, Dan Berman questions organized religion and feels ambivalent about his Jewish faith. It's 1970. American soldiers kill women and children in Vietnam. Catholics and Protestants do battle in Northern Ireland. Muslims and Jews murder one another in Israel. Viewing all this through a stateside lens, Dan has mixed emotions about the cards humanity has dealt him. Then he meets Harriet, Lutheran daughter of the head chaplain on post, Colonel Harold Marshall. One night the colonel discovers Dan and Harriet bedding down together at the Jewish Center. The fallout dovetails with other religious tension simmering at the fort, escalating into a satiric jabs at the divisiveness of religion. The fort becomes a microcosm of a war-torn world. As all heaven and hell break loose, Dan relies on his kindhearted rabbi's wise and witty advice to navigate religion and romance. The Rabbi Wore Bell-bottoms grapples with the ways religion colors our perceptions and feelings. The humorous, humanistic voice of Dan Berman will keep you alternately musing and amused — and just might enhance your understanding of some underlying reasons behind the mass exodus from organized religion.

Art Novak has written two novels: The Rabbi Wore Bell-bottoms and Doglegs. He is Professor Emeritus at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) where he taught causes in advertising copywriting, served as advisor to three 1st-place teams in the National Student Advertising Competition-District 7, and was selected Educator of the Year by that district. In addition to being an author and educator, Art ran The Art of Copy, writing ads, videos, and speeches for a wide variety of clients. As creative director or copywriter at advertising agencies in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Boston, Art's credentials include an Emmy, a One Show pencil, and publication in the annual advertising edition of Communication Arts.